Maria Branyas, world’s oldest person, dead at 117

Maria Branyas, who was born in the U.S. when Theodore Roosevelt was president and years before the outbreak of World War I, has died at her home in Spain, according to her family. She was 117 years old.

Branyas died in her sleep on early Tuesday morning at a nursing home in Olot, a city in the Spanish region of Catalonia. At the age of 117 years and 168 days, she was the world’s oldest living person and the 8th oldest person in history.

“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” her family said in a statement on social media. “We will always remember her for her advice and kindness.”

As quoted by her family, Branyas recently said: “One day I will leave. I will not drink coffee again, nor eat yogurt, nor caress Fairy (her dog which died) … I will also leave my memories, my reflections … and I will cease to exist in this body. One day – I don’t know when, but it’s very close – this long journey will be over. Death will find me worn out from having lived so long, but I want it to find me smiling, free and satisfied.”

Branyas was born in San Francisco, California, on March 4, 1907, and moved with her family to Barcelona in 1915. She lived through the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, and Francisco Franco’s dictatorship from 1936 to 1975.

She married a Spanish doctor, Joan Moret, in 1931 and together they had three children: two daughters and one son. Her husband died in 1976 and her son, August, was killed in a tractor accident at the age of 86.

More than a century after the Spanish Flu pandemic, Branyas also survived COVID-19 in 2020. She was infected just a few weeks after her 113th birthday but fully recovered in just a few days. In 2021, she received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, making her one of the oldest people to get vaccinated.

After her death, the new oldest living person in the world whose records have been verified is 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka from Japan. She’s expected to be officially recognized by Guinness World Records in the near future. A second person, Inah Canabarro Lucas from Brazil, is only 2 weeks younger.

The oldest person to have ever lived was 122-year-old Jeanne Calment from France, who died in 1997, though some have questioned her record in recent years. Other people have claimed to be older but those were never verified with official documents and other supporting evidence.

Jiroemon Kimura, who died in Japan in 2013 at the age of 116 years and 54 days, was the world’s oldest verified man in recorded history, according to Guinness World Records. The current oldest living man is 111-year-old John Tinniswood from the UK. He’s due to celebrate his 112th birthday next week.

Maria Branyas Morera, the world’s oldest person, has died at age 117 in Spain

She was the eighth-oldest person with a verifiable age in history pic.twitter.com/MNeLfZwT0K

— BNO News (@BNONews) August 20, 2024